Thoughts After 3 Years of ETF Dollar-Cost Averaging
I’ve been putting 300,000 KRW a month into a mix of S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 since early 2022. At first I was so nervous that I checked the market twice a day, but now I barely even open the app. Here are some things I’ve sorted out along the way.
1. You really can’t time the market. Taking a -20% hit in 2022, losing my nerve, and pausing for three months was the decision I regret most in hindsight. In the end, just investing mechanically is the answer.
2. You can’t ignore exchange rates. Since these are USD ETFs, there’s a pretty big gap between returns in KRW and returns in USD. Hunting around for brokerage promotions to save on currency exchange fees made a surprisingly big difference.
3. Separating accounts puts my mind at ease. I split things into retirement savings I don’t touch and a regular account I can withdraw from if needed, and psychologically it made me much more stable.
4. Records matter most. I wrote one line in a purchase journal each time explaining why I bought that day, and rereading it shows me how often I repeat the same mistakes.
The conclusion is that simply holding on for a long time is the hardest part. After three years, I’ve found that consistency is harder than returns.
6 answers
True—the moment you try to nail the timing, you lose your composure first.
I'm a bit skeptical about the exchange-rate argument. Over the past three years, USD/KRW has bounced between 1,200 and 1,400, and I doubt it's right to factor that into returns and call it "profit." Unrealized FX gains are just number games, and you could get hit in the opposite direction when you convert back to KRW later—isn't this a somewhat overrated point? Saving on fees is real, but I question whether it's important enough to pick as one of four variables.